Personal Opinion: I believe that swearing is becoming more normalised in Australia and around the world, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Swearing is harsh, and should not be said to people that you know would not accept it or get angry that you swore in front of them. It should be something that is shared on a personal level with some friends or family members. Saying F*CK or SH*T when you’ve hurt yourself has become a natural reaction, and I think that it’s an OK thing to do, it relieves the pain somewhat. Although I do agree that blatant swearing towards people in order to hurt them is wrong and should not be used in that manner.

“Quotes”:

The average speaker of English utters around 80 to 90 swear words every day. That’s only about half as frequent as we use first person plural pronouns such as ”we” and ”us”.

But swearing is more public, more frequent in film, television, on radio and in print. It’s been normalised.

”the use of obscenity could make a credible speaker appear more human”.

Almost everybody swears, and swears a lot. Punishing extremely common language is obviously a bad idea. Something so banal should not be a police matter. Even prime ministers do it, after all.

Name: Lost for words in the universe of expanding English
Date: 1/28/10
Author: Elizabeth Farrelly

Key Ideas:

Vulgarisms – when they are said out of anger, are pathetic. Only when they are gratuitous are they less harsh

High vocabulary is nice to have if you want to show off

Expansion in the English Language is achieved by skipping to the word, not working your way up to creating it. In her words, ‘leaving holes in the middle’.

We shouldn’t use words from other languages to express things that we feel, when there are English words that you can use as well.

Language Features: Word Addition, Informal Language, Swearing, Grammar, Word Formation, Neologisms
Course Aspects: Unit 3 - AoS 2: Formal Language - The nature and function of formal texts, the relationship between the context and the features of language in formal texts, analyse the nature, features and functions of formal texts

Personal Opinion: This woman annoys me to no end. She shows off all her rococo words in this article just to show off all her rococo words! I feel like I could start a diatribe with her to show how vitriolic I can be. I’m pretty pervicacious about this sort of thing, and she basically made an article talking about how many words she knew. Besides that, she makes some good points about how vulgarisms said out of anger are pathetic, and how lots of the new words created today ARE interesting to read and look at.

“Quotes”:

Writers are always gushing over the flex and dexterity of English, the way it hoovers up slang, patois and jargon of all kinds with a voraciousness rivalled only by Catholicism’s sucking-up of billabong religions.

English is remarkable. The gushers cite really useful blow-ins like wiki and lolcat (has there ever been a craze so dumb?) but there are many newbies to inspire our thanks. Pixel is one. As in “I’m feeling a little bit pixilated today”. Or muffintop, as in jeans. Snowclone, metrosexual and meme.

“You like to impress,” wrote one reader recently, “with your knowledge of every English word on the planet, so I presume you are familiar with ‘hyperbole’.” Familiar? Darling, hyperbole and I are like this!

Personal Opinion: I think that the doge speak is interesting, as it uses broken English, and doesn’t need to complete a sentence to show what it is saying. I believe that it should mainly be used for comedic purposes though, if this was used as a main language (which it probably already is somewhere) it could become more of a wide-spread change for the English language, and it might not be a good thing.“Quotes”:

“In this sense, doge really is the next generation of LOLcat, in terms of a pet-based snapshot of a certain era in internet language.”

“Doge speak is clearly composed of subunits which are divided by a period in running text, which I’m going to call doge phrases.”

New Neologisms can appear at any time, and no-one will know when or how it will happen.

Be creative, enjoy the fun of new words

Likes the idea of freedom to make up new words, and not the annoyance of fixating on sufficiency

Annoyed at snobby literary critics that think that words NEED a meaning

Language Features: Neologisms, semantics, suffixation
Course Aspects: Unit 3 - AoS 1: Relationship between the context and the features of language in informal texts, analyse the effects of context on language choices

Personal Opinion: I think that Carey is right, and that words don’t need boundaries. Words should be free and come in whatever shape or form they like. Talking about how we are ‘well stocked’ with words is ridiculous. Words are being created every day, whether they require a meaning or not. It doesn’t mean that they should not be spoken. The English Language is built on the imagination of people and their ability to make words, and should not be restricted by people that think there are too many or they need to make sense.

“Quotes”:

“instinctive inclination to play with words and letters as though they were an abstract kind of toy”

the ultimate question is, Is it necessary?” To answer that properly we must consider carefully the word necessary.

When we talk about whether there’s a need for some grammatical or lexical innovation, we shouldn’t limit our interpretation to semantics.

William Zinsser, in his classic On Writing Well, puts his foot down firmly on upstarts and colloquialisms he dislikes: “I won’t accept ‘notables’ and ‘greats’ and ‘upcoming’ and countless other newcomers. They are cheap words and we don’t need them.” No amazeroonie for him, I bet.

Swearing has become so offensive in Australia that a fine has been placed on offensive behaviour.

Fines were issued after a warning, or particularly when f*ck and c*nt were used aggressively in a public space.

The fine seems to unfairly target minority groups such as aboriginal people and young people

Language Features: Swearing, Language Progression, Euphemisms, Expletive swearing, Social/Stylistic functions of swearing
Course Aspects: Unit 3 - AoS 1: Informal Language - Role of swearing in society, Swearing, Relationship between the context and the features of language in spoken English

Personal Opinion: This basically puts a cost on words and is ridiculous, because in the end, hurtful or not, they’re just words. Swearing should not be an offence that can fine a kid that accidentally swore in public because he forgot where he was or who he was around. The worst thing to happen to a person caught swearing would be a stern talking to and warning to stop swearing in public places. If caught a second time in that same instance only then should someone be fined for swearing. Not much else to say on this matter.

“Quotes”:

Police will soon be able to issue fines of up to $500 to anyone who displays offensive language, up from $150.

The criminal offence of offensive language is often part of a “trifecta” of infringement notices – the original offence, offensive behaviour and offensive language.

Critics such as solicitor Jane Sanders, from free legal service The Shop Front Legal Youth Centre, said swearing was part of everyday vernacular and the laws unfairly targeted minority groups such as Aboriginal people and young people.

Personal Opinion: I believe that this is ridiculous, I use the comma every single day of my life. Punctuation is apart of every day life, and if removed, it could in fact ruin most texts and change the way we read them. Short article, but interesting nonetheless.“Quotes”:

“Nobody has any reason for it that is scientifically sensible and logical in the sense that we know how hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water,” McWhorter told Slate magazine.

“You “could take them out of a great deal of modern (American) texts and you would probably suffer so little loss of clarity that there could even be a case made for not using commas at all,” McWhorter said.”

Name: Is Texting Killing the English Language?
Date: 25/4/13
Author: John McWhorter

Key Ideas:

Argumentative text saying that texting is developing its own language.

Texting should stay in text form, not spoken out loud in daily conversation. e.g. “LOL that was so funny”

Instead of LOL having a literal meaning, it conveys an attitude. People don’t actually laugh out loud when they write the word LOL.

Texting and messaging reproduce the speed of talking

Texting is a work in progress in regards to the English Language

Language Features: Prosodic Features - Capitalisation, Emoticons. Lack of punctuation, Variation in spelling, reductions and shortenings, initialisations, pictograms (<3)
Course Aspects: Unit 3 - AoS 1: Informal Language - the relationship between the context and the features of language in informal texts. Analyse the nature, features and functions of informal written texts and transcripts of informal language

Personal Opinion: I don’t believe that texting is killing the English Language, but making it more advanced.I think that texting is a work in progress, It still has a ways to go in regards to how we talk in texting and how we talk in conversation, and I also believe that texting should stay in texts, not in spoken conversation, as it gives a certain informality to the speech that isn’t kind to people listening, it certainly isn’t enjoyable for the older community, as they will not understand what youths are saying.“Quotes”:

Texting has long been bemoaned as the downfall of the written word, “penmanship for illiterates,” as one critic called it.